Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2014 - Page 60

Bring Out the Stars
Tampere ups the ante with downtown renaissance,
high-rise construction and green-edge solutions
– and develops into a world-class Innovative City
In recent years, Tampere has clearly been among the winners when it comes
to attracting people, companies and investments. Businesses – both big and
small – flock here because of Tampere’s great location, traffic connections and
versatile commercial services.
J
yrki Laiho, Director of Urban and Economic Development for the City of Tampere, knows that Tampere has a secret
weapon – or two, actually: “The two local
universities have made sure that we have
sufficient brain power for companies establishing operations here.”
But what separates Tampere from
other academic cities is the attitude towards
students: Laiho points out that student housing has been concentrated in the downtown
area for years now, allowing for true integration into the community. “The students
that get to know the city are more likely to
stay here, too,” he says.
Eye on Growth
This type of attention to detail is customary
in the City’s strategies. Tampere has been
58 Nordicum
working hard to make the city a better place
for businesses – and that work is starting to
bear fruit. The recipe for success, according to Laiho, is simple enough: never mind
where the people come from, just figure out
where the jobs come from.
“As long as there are jobs available,
everything else will work itself out,” he describes the philosophy.
That’s not the only thing, however:
Tampere is of the opinion that if a city wants
to thrive in the global competition, it must
work on its IQ. In fact, Tampere is in charge
of the national Innovative Cities initiative
and looking to use its varied expertise to improve the lives of its citizens more and more.
“The Innovative City concept calls for
smart governance, open data and smart citizens – and we’re working on all of these,”
Laiho says. The central idea of the “Tampere
Model” is to establish smart infrastructure
that is sturdy enough to enable digital services and administration, for instance.
Movers & Shakers
Smart solutions are needed, as the population of Tampere is continuing to grow briskly: every year, the population increases by
about 2,000 residents. The population of the
city is nearing 220,000, and the whole urban region has a total of 360,000 residents.
Laiho quotes classic city planning studies
in stating that the optimum size for a city
is right along those lines: 200,000 people.
“We have a city here that is not too big
or too small. We have all the services available without the problems that come with a
big metropolis,” Laiho says.
One of the challenges, then, is managing the intense growth that is likely to come
in the next two decades. During the next 20
years, there will be 90,000 new residents
in Tampere Region – and, proportionally
speaking, the increase is bigger than that predicted for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.